The Benefits of Meditation

What are the benefits of meditation? To find out, you could simply ask people who regularly meditate. One of them happens to be Mr Wang.

And Mr Wang would tell you: “Based on my personal experience, meditation sharply improves concentration. It makes you smarter. You will understand things faster, and become more creative. You will even become wise. Furthermore, meditation brings you happiness. Therefore I encourage you to meditate.”

Whereupon the skeptical might say: “Well, Mr Wang, how do you know this? Have your claims been verified in any double-blind experiment? And if so, I insist that the double-blind experiment be replicated by other scientists. Make sure that the sample size is good and please do your statistical analysis properly. Otherwise I shall not believe your ludicrous claims.”

Mr Wang would reply: “Oh well. If you don’t believe me, you could go ask other people who meditate regularly. Based on their personal experience, they would probably tell you the same things as I have. In fact, some old people say that meditation helps them to stay alert and think as sharply as much younger people. And why would they lie to you? Anyway, the effect of meditation is something you can easily verify for yourself. Just try it three times a week, for about 20 minutes each time. And you will see.”

Whereupon the skeptical would say: “Nonsense! Do you actually expect me to trust my very own experience? Show me evidence, in the form of a scientific paper published in a scientific journal! And not just any scientific journal, but a peer-reviewed scientific journal. And not just a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but a top-tier peer-reviewed scientific journal. And make sure the scientists come from world-class academic institutions like Yale, MIT or Harvard Medical School! Anything less will be totally unacceptable to me!”

And then Mr Wang would say: “Eh, you think I very free ah? I give you good advice, if you don’t believe, then don’t believe lah. Like I owe you money, liddat. Throughout the history of mankind, people have known about the benefits of meditation for THOUSANDS of years, not as if it’s a DAMNED BIG secret or what. Is it my fault that modern science is so slow in catching up? Next time you want to know anything, don’t ask me lah, go and google for the answer yourself! Duh.”

Meditation found to increase brain size
Mental calisthenics bulk up some layers
By William J. Cromie

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't.

Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.

"Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. "These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice." .... Link.

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The RAS at Work

In my earlier post on goal-writing, I had provided various links. One of them was to an article which mentioned the reticular activating system (RAS) in the human brain. In the present post I will discuss the RAS.

The RAS is the part of the human brain that deals with motivations. Although there is no scientific consensus on this point yet, some people believe that one of the functions of the RAS is to direct a person’s attention towards things in his environment that are relevant to his motivations and interests. Simultaneously, the RAS will filter out things in his environment which are judged not to be relevant.

For example, suppose a man enters into a big room full of strangers, walks around for ten seconds, and then leaves the room. If you then ask him to describe all the people he just saw, he may be able to describe just a few of them. But there’s a very high chance that he will remember the sexy young lady with the big breasts and the long legs. In fact, he probably noticed her almost immediately upon entering the room, instinctively picking her out from a big crowd of faceless strangers. This is his RAS at work.

Here is another example. You take your time to read the newspapers on a leisurely Sunday. When you're done, you would have read, say, fifteen full articles in detail (because these articles were interesting to you). However, there could be another twenty articles which you had skipped completely, because they were not interesting to you and you did not want to read them at all.

Now, if you were then asked to put aside your newspaper and say something about those 20 articles, you would struggle. You would not even know what it is that you cannot remember. The funny thing is that when you were going through the newspapers, at some unconscious level you MUST have noticed these 20 articles. Otherwise how were you able to judge that they were uninteresting and should be skipped?

What happened here is that your RAS automatically filtered those 20 articles away and out of your field of perception. Your unconscious / subconscious mind took note of those 20 articles, decided that you shouldn’t waste your time on them and directed your attention elsewhere. Your conscious mind played no part in this. In effect, you had no choice. Therefore you can neither remember anything about the 20 articles you skipped nor understand why you had skipped them.

Most of us know what we like, and what we are interested in – therefore we know what are the kind of things we notice. What we don’t know is what we don’t notice. What we don’t notice is probably a heck of a lot of things. But that’s mostly unconscious to us.

That’s because our RAS works on the basis of our subconscious / unconscious mind. A heterosexual man does not have to tell his RAS, “Please direct my attention to sexy young ladies in my physical proximity.” A newspaper reader interested in professional golf and Australian politics does not have to tell his RAS, “Please direct my attention to newspaper articles about professional golf and Australian politics.” It all happens automatically.

Since the RAS operates on the basis of our subconscious / unconscious mind, the beliefs and thoughts that we hold at these levels in effect decide what we perceive about the world - every minute, every hour, day after day, month after month, year after year.

So for instance, if you subconsciously believe that you are a useless idiot, your RAS will constantly direct your attention towards all available evidence and events in your physical environment that indicate or suggest that you are a useless idiot.

If you subconsciously believe that hard work is the only way to succeed (and you want to succeed), your RAS will constantly direct your attention such that the only route to success that you can perceive is through hard work.

If you subconsciously believe that it is very possible to make lots of money, your RAS will constantly direct your attention such that you keep perceiving many possible opportunities to make a lot of money.

If you subconsciously believe that you are great at solving difficult problems, then your RAS will constantly direct your attention such that you keep perceiving difficult problems, AND keep perceiving great ways to solve them.

If you subconsciously believe that you are too young / too old / too weak / too poor / too lazy / too unlucky / too disadvantaged / too busy to do _____________, then your RAS will constantly direct your attention towards perceiving evidence that you are indeed too young / too old / too weak / too poor / too lazy / too unlucky / too disadvantaged / too busy to do _____________.

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As I’ve said before, your reality is basically (a) what you perceive about reality, and (b) your interpretation of your perceptions. In the end, your reality is totally constructed out of your thoughts. Things which are deeply against your deepest beliefs will simply not be perceptible by you.

For example, the staunch atheist will look around the universe, the stars, the sun, the seas and the moon and say, “I cannot see any evidence at all of the existence of God!”. While the religious believer will look around the same universe, the stars, the sun, the seas and the moon and say, “I see God everywhere! What kind of fool one must be, not to be able to see this!”. Both of them are absolutely correct, within their respective realities.

There is no escape! Your mind is your universe. Change your mind, and you change your __________.

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